Cincinnati to work with SoMoLend in lending plan

The city of Cincinnati will be pairing up with a web-based
lending platform to help out small businesses and startups. With the approval of the
Small Business Advisory Committee, the city and SoMoLend will give up
to $400,000 in loans to stimulate economic
growth and job creation.

The partnership will aid small businesses and startups
through crowd funding, which connects multiple potential lenders so no
single investor, including the city government, is carrying the a bulk
of the burden. Since crowd funding gets more investors involved, it can
also raise more money for promising startups and small businesses.

Businesses will be picked through SoMoLend’s typical
application process, which emphasizes startups and small businesses.
Successful applicants usually have 15 or fewer employees, meet a few
standards regarding business and personal finances and prove they
actually need a commercial loan. In the past, businesses have raised as
much as $1 million in loans with SoMoLend.

Applicants will also have to go through the city’s
application process. The city government will look at how many jobs are
created, what’s the capital investment involved, how much the city will
give relative to private lenders and other similar metrics.

Even as the economy recovers, small businesses and
startups are having a tough time getting loans in comparison to bigger businesses. So the focus on small
businesses and startups is in part to bring beneficial fairness to the
system, says Meg Olberding, city spokesperson. “Access to capital at all
levels has to happen. And the city government feels like small
businesses are key to growth in our local economy.”

The partnership’s focus on startups is economically sound. Governments and politicians love to herald small businesses as the drivers of economic
growth, but studies suggest startups are more deserving of the praise. A paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that young small businesses, or startups, are the key drivers to economic and job growth.

As for why SoMoLend was picked over other platforms,
Olberding says location and history played a role: “It’s a local small
business, so it’s … demonstrating what we’re talking about. It’s also a
demonstrated success in terms of bringing viable businesses to the
market.”

The partnership is part of an ongoing effort to spur small
businesses and startups in Cincinnati. SBAC was created in 2012 to pave
a clearer, better path that encourages such businesses in the city.
SBAC reviewed, gave feedback and approved the new partnership earlier
today.

Councilwoman Yvette Simpson, head of SBAC, praised the
partnership in a statement: “I am excited that the SBAC approved the city’s new partnership with SoMoLend today. By making city lending more
efficient and expanding the network of small businesses receiving city
assistance, this new partnership fits well into the SBAC’s goal of
making Cincinnati a better place for small business.”

Advocates argue minimum wage increases spur economic growth

When Ohio’s minimum wage automatically increases by 10
cents to $7.95 per hour at the start of 2014, roughly 330,000 workers
will receive raises across the state, according to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

That could be good news for all of Ohio: EPI found the minimum wage increase will benefit the rest of the state through nearly $39 million in economic impact and 300 new full-time jobs.

“Ohio workers and the Ohio economy will both benefit from
this raise for our lowest-paid neighbors,” said Amy Hanauer, executive
director of left-leaning think tank Policy Matters Ohio, in a statement. “The employees who
benefit will turn around and spend money in our communities, stimulating
growth here.”

The automatic increase is a result of a constitutional amendment
approved by Ohio voters in 2006 that hiked the minimum wage to $6.85 per hour and pegged it to
rises in the cost of living.

Ohio isn’t alone in the increase, however. Policy Matters
estimates 10 other states — Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Montana,
Missouri, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and New Jersey —
automatically increase their minimum wages each year to keep up with
inflation.

The nationwide minimum wage hikes “will generate over $619
million in new economic activity and support creation of 4,600 new
full-time jobs as businesses expand to meet increased consumer demand,”
according to Policy Matters.

The projections come at a time progressives are working on
the national stage to increase the federal minimum wage, which, at
$7.25 per hour, is becoming increasingly irrelevant as Congress fails to
keep up with many states’ minimum wage expansions.

President Barack Obama’s Fair Minimum Wage Law would raise
the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour by 2015 and — perhaps most
importantly — ensure the minimum wage increases each year to keep up
with the cost of living. The left-leaning National Employment Law
Project estimates the hike would help 30 million Americans and help grow the economy.

Opponents argue a minimum wage increase, especially one as
rapid as Obama’s proposal, would burden businesses with considerably
higher labor costs. They argue companies would drop
employees or raise prices to cope with higher expenses.

Advocates typically tout a minimum wage hike as a matter
of basic fairness. They claim the federal minimum wage would be
$10.55 per hour today if it kept up with inflation.

Meanwhile, the economics research on the effects of the minimum wage is fairly mixed. Some studies linked higher minimum wages to less employment, while other studies found no effects at all.

State auditor lays blame on state policy

A new report from the state auditor found Cincinnati
Public Schools (CPS) and Winton Woods City Schools were manipulating
attendance data for the 2011-2012 school year, but the report seems to lay
much of the blame on state policy, not just irresponsible school
districts.

CPS and Winton Woods were cited among nine
school districts by State Auditor Dave Yost for improperly withdrawing
students from enrollment. More than 70 other schools had errors in their
attendance reporting, but they were not found to be purposely
manipulating — or “scrubbing” — attendance data.

The report largely focused on flaws in state policy that enable bad attendance
reporting — particularly a single “count week” in October that
encourages school districts to boost attendance during that one week and
no other time in the school year.

“Kids count every day, all year long,” Yost said in a
statement. “They deserve better than what we're giving them — Ohio's
current system for measuring attendance and performance is obsolete and
in too many places, filled with error and bad information and even
outright fraud. It's amazing that it works at all, and sometimes, it
doesn't.”

As a solution, Yost is calling on legislators to change school funding so it’s based on year-long attendance reporting.

The report also made 12 other recommendations, including
increased oversight and monitoring, more programs for at-risk students,
better training, use of automated data reporting, more accessibility to
pertinent information for the Ohio Department of Education and clearer
rules.

Winton Woods was one of the few schools to self-report
issues to the auditor. Jim Smith, interim superintendent of Winton
Woods, admits the school made mistakes and will make adjustments. But he says most of the issues
were explained away as errors, not intentional data manipulation. Only four
of the 15 issues
couldn’t be reasonably explained, according to Smith.

Smith says the Education Management Information System (EMIS), which is used to report attendance data, is problematic for highly mobile
students, particularly in urban school districts. He argues the system
is too complicated and difficult to use for tracking such students.

In a Feb. 8 press release, Winton Woods claimed
the reporting issues were related to confusion regarding expelled
students, poor record keeping and a lack of well-defined procedures and
reporting systems.

In an emailed statement, CPS Superintendent Mary Ronan wrote the school district made mistakes, but internal audits did not find evidence of data manipulation or scrubbing. She linked the errors to confusing state policy and issues with highly mobile students.

School attendance data is one of many ways states measure
school performance, as required by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

Update (Feb. 12, 10:29 a.m.): Originally, this story did not include comments from CPS. It was updated to reflect comments CityBeat obtained after publishing.

As Mitt Romney gets ready to attend a $2,500 a plate fundraiser at downtown’s Great American Tower, the local Democratic Party chairman says the presidential hopeful’s economic plan “would do nothing to create jobs now.”

Hamilton County Democratic Party Chairman Tim Burke released a statement this afternoon describing why he believes a Romney presidency would be disastrous for middle-class Americans.

Meanwhile, a group of community leaders led a protest outside of the East Fourth Street office building as attendees arrived for the fundraiser. The protest was organized by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) District 1199, which represents more than 30,000 health-care and social service workers across Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia.

“Mitt Romney holding $2,500 per person fundraiser at the Great American Tower is a perfect example of exactly who he is and who he represents,” said Becky Williams, SEIU’s district president, in a prepared statement. “While Romney is hobnobbing on the rooftop with his wealthy donors hosted by American Financial Group, ordinary Ohioans are struggling to find work and provide for their families.”

“Nothing Mitt Romney says can change the fact that he spent his career as a corporate buyout specialist who put profits over people and lined his pockets by outsourcing jobs, closing down plants and laying off workers,” Burke said.

“His 59-point economic plan would do nothing to create jobs now, fix America’s economy or help struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure. His tax plan would benefit the ultra-wealthy and do nothing to help middle-class families in Greater Cincinnati,” Burke added.

In preparation for Romney’s visit today, the Democratic National Committee pointed out that the investment firm once led by the candidate, Bain Capital, rejected a government offer to invest in General Motors (GM) during the 2008 financial crisis.

Romney has said on the campaign trail that he opposed the government bailout of U.S. automakers because the private market would have provided loans so GM and Chrysler Corp. could go through managed bankruptcy. But sources told The New York Times that Bain turned down an offer to help GM at the time.

“To go through the bankruptcy process, both companies needed billions of dollars in financing, money that auto executives and government officials who were involved with Mr. Obama’s auto task force say was not available at a time when the credit markets had dried up,” the article stated.

It added, “The only entity that could provide the $80 billion needed, they say, was the federal government. No private companies would come to the industry’s aid, and the only path through bankruptcy would have been Chapter 7 liquidation, not the more orderly Chapter 11 reorganization, these people said.”

Report found state has cut local government funding by nearly 50 percent since 2010

With the support of local officials from around the state, Cincinnati Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld is launching a website called ProtectMyOhio.com to organize efforts to restore local government funding cut during Gov. John Kasich’s time in office.

“What we’re really trying to do today is speak up and
sound the alarm about the governor’s ongoing raid on the Local
Government Fund,” Sittenfeld said. “Over the last four years, the
governor has taken away $3 billion in local government funding. This
year alone, municipalities across Ohio are going to receive nearly $1
billion less than they previously would have.”

He added, “This is the exact same money that cities,
villages and townships used to keep cops in the street, staff our fire
departments, fix the potholes and some of the other basic services that
citizens rightly expect and the local governments are the ones
responsible for delivering.”

In the past, the Kasich administration has argued the cuts
were necessary. When previously asked about cuts to education and other
state funding, Rob Nichols, Kasich’s spokesperson, told CityBeat, “The reality is we walked into an $8 billion budget deficit. … We had to fix that.”

But the 2014-2015 budget is not under the fiscal pressures Kasich experienced when he took office, and the governor is pursuing $1.4 billion in tax cuts over the next three years,
which he argues will help spur small businesses around the
state. During the phone conference, local officials said the revenue going to tax cuts
would be better used to return funds to local governments.

Sittenfeld says the cuts have left Cincinnati with $12
million less per year. “That is the difference between us having our
first police recruit class in nearly six years versus not having it,” he
said. “It’s the difference between enduring dangerous fire engine
brownouts versus not having to do so.”

Klein, who represented Columbus in the call,
said the cuts have amounted to nearly $30 million for his city, which he
said is enough money to help renovate nearly all the city’s recreation
centers, parks and pools.

“No one is spared,” Klein said. “Everyone is getting cut
across the state, and every neighborhood — no matter if you’re in a
small village or in a large city like Columbus, Cleveland, Toledo or
Dayton — (is) at some level feeling the effects of the cuts, whether
it’s actual cuts in services or what could be investments in
neighborhoods.”

Klein said the cuts, which have been carried out by a
Republican governor and Republican-controlled legislature, contradict
values espoused by national Republicans. At the federal level,
Republicans typically argue that states should be given more say in
running programs like Medicaid, but Ohio Republicans don’t seem to share
an interest in passing money down to more local governments, according
to Klein.

Some state officials have previously argued that it’s not
the state’s responsibility to take care of local governments, but
Sittenfeld says it’s unfair to not give money back to the cities:
“Cincinnati is a major economic engine for the entire state. We’re
sending a lot of money to Columbus, so I think it’s fair to say we would
like some of that money back. John Kasich doesn’t have to fill the
potholes, and John Kasich doesn’t have to put a cop on the street.”

Whaley, who represented Dayton in the call, said, “There’s
a county perspective on this as well. The counties would certainly say
that the unfunded mandates that the state legislature brings down daily
are covered by those local government funds. While (state officials)
keep on making rules for the counties to administer services and make
those efforts, it’s pretty disingenuous to say that (county officials)
don’t get a share of the income.”

A Policy Matters Ohio report found the state has cut $1.4 billion from local government funding
— nearly half of total funding — during Kasich’s time as governor. The report pinned much of that drop on the estate tax,
which was phased out at the beginning of 2013 and would have provided
$625.3 million to local governments in the 2014-2015 budget. The estate tax was
repealed in 2011 by the Republican-controlled Ohio legislature and
Kasich.

Cincinnati had structural deficit problems before Kasich
took office, but local officials argue the state’s cut have made matters
worse. When presenting his 2013 budget proposal, City Manager Milton
Dohoney Jr. said the state funding reductions cost Cincinnati $22.2
million in revenues for the year.

Kasich’s office did not return CityBeat’s phone calls for this story.

Kasich’s latest budget proposal has also been criticized by Republicans and Democrats
for tax cuts and education funding plans that benefit the wealthy and
expanding Medicaid (“Smoke and Mirrors,” issue of Feb. 20).

New poll shows slim Ohio majority embraces gay marriage

For the first time, a Washington Post poll shows 52 percent of Ohioans support same-sex marriage, and only 37 percent say it should be illegal.

With a margin of error of 4.5 points, it’s possible the
September poll could be too optimistic, but the poll shows a sharp
contrast to 2004, when 62 percent of Ohioans voted in favor of a
constitutional amendment defining marriage between a man and a woman.

The poll also found support for same-sex marriage growing
in Florida and Virginia. In Florida, 54 percent support same-sex
marriage, while 33 percent say it should be illegal. In Virginia, 49
percent support same-sex marriage, and 40 percent want it to be illegal.
Both are increases in support in comparison to previous years.

The news comes at a time when FreedomOhio is stepping up
its efforts to get an amendment legalizing same-sex marriage in Ohio on the
2013 ballot.

CORRECTION:
This article originally credited Equality Ohio for the amendment. The
amendment push is being led by FreedomOhio, a different pro-gay
marriage organization.

The campaign for Freedom to Marry Ohio, the amendment that would legalize same-sex marriage, previously touted
an economic study that showed Ohio could bring in $100-126 million of
economic growth within three years of legalizing same-sex marriage and
sustain 1,160-1,450 Ohio jobs. In Hamilton County, same-sex marriage
legalization would bring in $8.3 million. However, the study did not
take into account a phenomenon dubbed “marriage tourism,” which involves
same-sex couples visiting a state mostly to get married; so it’s
possible the economic impact could be even greater than the study
suggests.

The study also found that more than 9,800 out of more than
19,600 same-sex marriage couples in Ohio would marry within three years
if it was legal, and nearly 900 out of nearly 1,800 in Hamilton County
would marry within three years.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg previously touted
same-sex marriage legalization for its economic boost to his city. He said it had
produced $259 million in economic growth in New York City.

State has added 4,400 jobs in past year

An infographic from Pew Charitable Trusts shows Ohio ranked No. 46 out of all the states for job creation in the past year, beating only Wisconsin, Maine and Wyoming and tying with Alaska.

Between April 2012 and April this year, Ohio added 4,400 jobs — a 0.1-percent increase in the state's employment.

The three states below Ohio and Alaska — Wisconsin, Maine and Wyoming — had a drop in employment ranging from 0.2 percent to 0.5 percent.

North Dakota topped the rankings with 15,900 new jobs — a 3.7-percent increase in employment — largely driven by the state's ongoing oil and gas boom.

The statistics coincide with previous warnings from liberal and conservative think tanks about the state's economy, signifying that Ohio is not undergoing the "economic miracle" that Gov. John Kasich and other state officials often tout.

Here is the full infographic, which uses job data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

Local subscribers to Time Warner and Insight cable woke up today without access to WLWT-TV
(Channel 5) after the station and companies failed to reach a new
retransmission agreement. Instead, the cable companies offered Channel 2
from NBC affiliate Terre Haute, Ind. The Enquirer is all over
the story, reporting that Todd Dykes and Lisa Cooney in the morning were
replaced by someone named Dada Winklepleck in Wabash Valley, Ind. Don’t
worry: 30 Rock will still be on your new local Indiana station. Visit
mywabashvalley.com for further details about additional programming. Or
you can just hook up an antennae and get WLWT in hi-def for free.

Anyone in the market for a school building? Cincinnati
Public Schools is adding four closed buildings to a for-sale list in an
attempt to raise the capital necessary to complete an overhaul of its
in-use buildings as part of its Facilities Master Plan.
The new buildings on the list are Central Fairmount, Kirby
Road, North Fairmount and Old Shroder schools.

Barack Obama is in Iowa apparently setting up an issue on
which to debate Romney later this fall. Obama is pitching an extension
of the Bush-era tax cuts for households earning less than $250,000,
while Romney wants to extend them for rich people, too.

The FDA went against the advice of an expert panel,
deciding not to require mandatory training for doctors prescribing
long-acting narcotic painkillers that can lead to addiction.

Three-hundred-square-foot apartments in New York City? Mayor Michael Bloomberg asked developers yesterday to try to make them work.

City planners envision a future in which the young, the
cash-poor and empty nesters flock to such small dwellings — each not
much bigger than a dorm room. In a pricey real estate market where about
one-third of renter households spend more than half their income on
rent, it could make housing more affordable.

Two-to-one vote cuts rollback in half for two years to make up stadium fund deficit

Hamilton County homeowners can expect a larger bill come
tax time. The Hamilton County Board of County Commissioners on
Wednesday voted to halve the property tax rollback promised to voters as part
of the package to build the two downtown sports stadiums.

The rollback saves property owners $70 in taxes for every
$100,000 of valuation. For the next two years they will be paying an
extra $35 per $100,000 of their home’s value.

The money will be used to balance the stadium fund, which
faces a $7 million deficit. The rollback reduction is expected to raise
about $10 million. The board voted 2-1 for the proposal, with sole Democrat Todd Portune dissenting.

“The property tax rollback measure that has been advanced
so far buys us only one year, and next year we will be doing the same
thing we are doing today,” Portune said.

Portune favored raising the sales tax by 0.25 cents — to
6.75 — per dollar, which would have raised more than $30 million over 10
years. His proposal, which failed to receive any support, would have
expired after the 10 years and gone up for review annually after the
first five.

Portune said his proposal was more equitable. He said
reducing the property tax rollback was going to affect only Hamilton
County residential property owners, whereas a sales tax increase would
affect everyone who spends money in the county, including visitors from
neighboring Kentucky and Indiana.

Portune billed the tax increase as a long-term solution
that would raise more than was needed currently but would keep the fund
stable in years to come.

Board President Greg Hartmann, who authored the rollback
reduction proposal, called Portune’s plan “a bridge too far.” He said
it was too large of a tax increase and not a targeted approach to solve
the deficit problem. He said he didn’t trust future commissions to allow
the tax increase to expire.

Commissioner Chris Monzel, who provided the deciding vote, said he didn’t like either and had to go against his principles with
either choice.

“No way I walk out of this without breaking a promise. No way I walk out of this winning,” he said.

Monzel said he hopes that savings from the Affordable Care Act
would allow the county to lower its property tax rates to make up for
the rollback reduction.

Monzel also introduced a successful proposal that will include an annual
review of the tax budget to make sure property taxes don’t change,
a provision requiring parking revenue from The Banks to be used to
develop The Banks and a directive for the county administrator to work
with Cincinnati’s professional sports teams on concessions they can make
to help out with the stadium funding burden.

U.S. Senate candidates engage in second round of attacks

For a full hour Thursday night, Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown and
Republican challenger Josh Mandel continued their feisty fight for Ohio’s U.S.
Senate seat. For the most part, the debate centered on the candidates’
records and personal attacks, with policy specifics spewing out in between.

Apparently, the barrage of attacks is not what the
candidates had in mind before the debate started. Throughout the debate, both
candidates asked for substance, not attacks. At one point, Brown said, “I
appreciate this clash of ideas. That’s what this debate should be about.” At another
point, Mandel said, “We need less attacking, and we need more policy ideas to
put people back to work.”

These comments came well into the debate. By that time, Mandel
had criticized Brown for “Washington speak” so many times that an
exasperated Brown quipped, “I don’t get this. Every answer is about Washington
speak.”

Brown also launched his own attacks, which focused on
Mandel’s dishonesty on the campaign trail, which previously earned Mandel a “Pants
on Fire” crown from Cleveland’s The Plain
Dealer, and Mandel, who is also Ohio’s treasurer, missing state treasurer
meetings to run for political office.

But Ohioans have seen enough of the attacks in the hundreds
of campaign ads that have bombarded the state in the past year. Voters probably
want to hear more about how each candidate will affect them, and the candidates
gave enough details to get some idea of where each of them will go.

On economic issues, Brown established the key difference
between the two candidates’ economic policies: Mandel, like most of his
Republican colleagues, believes in the trickle-down theory. The economic theory
says when the rich grow, they can create jobs by hiring more employees and
expanding businesses. In other words, proponents of the theory believe the
success of the rich “trickles down” to the middle class and poor through more
job opportunities. Belief in this theory is also why most Republicans call the
wealthy “job creators.” Under the trickle-down theory, the wealthy are
deregulated and get tax cuts so it’s easier for them to create jobs.

On the other hand, Brown says he supports a middle-out
approach, which focuses on policies that target the middle class. That is how
sustainable employment and growth are attained, according to Brown. Under the
middle-out approach, tax cuts and spending policies target the middle class,
and the wealthy own a higher tax burden to support government programs.

Some economists, like left-leaning Nobel laureate Paul
Krugman, say the trickle-down theory should have been put to rest with the
financial crisis of 2008. After all, deregulation is now credited with being
the primary cause of 2008’s economic crisis. In that context, more deregulation
seems like a bad idea.

Still, Brown’s contrast to Mandel holds true. Brown has
repeatedly called for higher taxes on the rich. In the debate, he touted his
support for the auto bailout and once again mocked Mandel’s promise to not
raise any taxes. These are policies that do end up benefiting the middle class
more than the wealthy. The auto bailout in particular has been credited with
saving thousands of middle-class jobs.

On the other side, Mandel told debate watchers to go to
his website and then offered some quick talking points: simplify the tax code,
end Wall Street bailouts and use Ohio’s natural gas and oil resources “in a
responsible way.” How Mandel wants to simplify the tax code is the issue. On
his website, Mandel says he supports “a flatter, fairer income tax with only
one or two brackets, eliminating almost all of the credits, exemptions and
loopholes.” A study by five leading economists suggests a flat tax model would
greatly benefit the wealthy and actually hurt the well-being of the middle class
and poor. That matches with the trickle-down economic theory.

Another suggestion on Mandel’s website says, “Help job creators.Reduce
capital gains and corporate taxes, and allow for a small business income
deduction.” The small business portion would help some in the middle class, but
an analysis from The Washington Post
found 80 percent of capital gains incomes benefit 5 percent of Americans and
half of all capital gains have gone to the top 0.1 percent of Americans. So a
capital gains tax cut would, again, match the trickle-down economic theory.

What all this means is on economic issues the choice of
candidates depends mostly on what economic theory a voter believes. Brown
believes in focusing economic policies that target the middle class, while
Mandel mostly supports policies that generally support what he calls “job
creators” — or the wealthy.

On partisanship, both sides once again threw out
different ideas. Although he was asked for three ideas, Brown only gave one:
fix the filibuster. The filibuster is a U.S. Senate procedure that allows 41
out of 100 senators to indefinitely halt any laws. The only way to break the
filibuster is by having a supermajority of 60 senators — a rarity in American
politics. Brown said if this rule was removed, a lot more could get done in
Congress.

Mandel had different ideas for stopping partisan gridlock
in Washington, D.C. He touted his support for No Budget, No Pay, which would require
members of Congress to pass a budget in order to get paid. He also expressed
his support for term limits, saying lifelong politicians only add to the partisanship
in Congress. Then, in a strange twist, Mandel’s last suggestion was to stop
bailouts, which has nothing to do with partisanship or gridlock in Congress.

Then came Obamacare. Brown said he was “proud” of his
vote and continued supporting the law, citing the millions of Americans it will
insure. Meanwhile, Mandel responded to the Obamacare question by saying, “The
federal government takeover of health care is not the answer.”

The fact of the matter is Obamacare is not a “government
takeover of health care.” Far from it. The plan doesn’t even have a public
option that would allow Americans to buy into a public, nonprofit insurance
pool — an idea that actually has majority support in the U.S. Instead,
Obamacare is a series of complicated reforms to the health insurance industry.
There are way too many reforms to list, but the most basic
effect of Obamacare is that more people will be insured. That’s right, in the
supposed “government takeover of health care,” insurance companies actually gain
more customers. That’s the whole point of the individual mandate and the many
subsidies in Obamacare that try to make insurance affordable for all Americans.

Mandel made another misleading claim when he said Obamacare
“stole” from Medicare, with the implication that the cuts hurt seniors
utilizing the program. It is true Obamacare cuts Medicare spending, but the
cuts target waste and payments to hospitals and insurers. It does not directly
cut benefits.

The one area with little disagreement also happened to be
the one area with the most misleading: China. It’s not a new trend
for politicians to attack China. The Asian country has become the scapegoat for
all economic problems in the U.S. But in this election cycle, politicians have
brandished a new line to attack China: currency manipulation. This, as Ohioans
have likely heard dozens of times, is why jobs are leaving Ohio and why the amount of
manufacturing jobs has dropped in the U.S. In fact, if politicians are taken
at their word, it’s probably the entire reason the U.S. economy is in a bad
spot.

In the Brown-Mandel debate, Brown repeatedly pointed to
his currency manipulation bill, which he claims would put an end to Chinese
currency manipulation. Mandel also made references to getting tough on China’s
currency manipulation.

One problem: China is no longer manipulating its currency.
There is no doubt China greatly massaged its currency in the past to gain an
unfair advantage, but those days are over, says Joseph Gagnon, an economist
focused on trade and currency manipulation. Gagnon argues the problem with
currency manipulation is no longer a problem with China; it’s a problem with
Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland and Saudi Arabia.
If the U.S. wants to crack down on currency manipulation, those countries
should be the targets, not China, he argues.

In other words, if currency manipulation is a problem,
Mandel was right when he said that countries other than China need to be targeted.To Brown’s credit, his currency manipulation bill targets any country engaging in currency manipulation, not just China. The problem
seems to be the misleading campaign rhetoric, not proposed policy.

The debate went on to cover many more issues. Just like
the first debate, Brown typically took the liberal position and Mandel
typically took the conservative position on social issues like gay rights and
abortion. Both touted vague support for small businesses. Each candidate
claimed to support military bases in Ohio, although Mandel specified he wants
bases in Europe closed down to save money. As far as debates go, the contrast
could not be any clearer, and the candidates disagreed on nearly every issue.

The final debate between the two U.S. Senate candidates
will take place in Cincinnati on Oct. 25.